My Crushes - Episode II

During one of those late night discussions at hostel, I was asked to list all my crushes. And believe me, it was really difficult. Starting from school teachers to perfect strangers, the list is seemingly endless. I have always believed in crushes more than in love. Love was like that unexplored territory which I was always afraid to go into. A crush was friendlier. It never demanded anything. I have always enjoyed my crushes. The times when I am thrilled, excited, frightened and passionate at the same time.  So, this is the second in the series of My Crushes.

 

I was at home enjoying??  the vacations. Each week had seven weekends and I was bored as hell. I joined a guitar class and also convinced one of my friends to join it. It was like crash course in 2 months of my vacation .

 

The class began every  morning at 8 and I was never late. The first time I was late, I saw a black pair of sandals at the footstep. As  a reflex, I straightened my hair, looked in the rear view mirror of the bike and went inside. Sitting there was the most cute girl I had ever seen. Believe me, you could never associate beautiful or sexy with her. She was just cute. No wonder her friends at school called her Angel.( I learnt this later) We just smiled at each other that day. It was just a friendly smile but I kept remembering it again and again. I practised very hard that night to impress her the next day. The creature that I was, I kept thinking of the perfect introduction line all night. For two days, I didn’t say anything. The third day, she asked me to play a note for her. I was a little nervous but I think I did all right. We began talking after that. She always talked like a li’l girl and I had always hated that. But there was no hint of fakeness in her tone. It was just plain innocence.

 

 Most of the times, our teacher would give us a song and go somewhere. The three of us used to have discussions on almost everything during these recesses. We used to have arguments on topics starting from “Vegetarianism”  to “Gayism”. She was a staunch supporter of  No-meat campaigns and I clearly remember she almost cried out in one of the discussions. Those classes were really the most interesting classes I ever attended. I found that she used to blog too. And good ones at that. I will soon post a poem by her.

Most of my friends never understand the fact that she was just 15 when I had a crush on her.Like age decided everything. They never understand that love is not always wanting. They never understand why I could have attended that class forever even if my fingers hurt like hell from all the strumming, why I would wait everyday at the gate just to walk beside her to the class, why I would look at her beautiful but clumsy fingers on the strings all throughout the class and why I would stare nervously at her only to look down when she saw me. Some things are better experienced.

 

 Some days before leaving, I wrote her an e-mail saying that I had a crush on her. Sometimes my friends ask me why do I always have to tell the girl. Well I have always believed that it hurts more saying nothing, wishing you had, than saying something, wishing you hadn’t. We exchanged mails for some days after that. And when I came back to the college and didn’t see her anymore for many days over, the feelings slowly faded. The mails stopped. I didn’t ask for her cell number. I will meet her someday, maybe in a few days, maybe in a few years. The day I meet her, will I be able to recognise her, will this old crush again rekindle itself, will she be as cute as she was the last time I saw her. But for now, I am free of these thoughts. That’s the magic of a crush. It never comes with a burden like love.

 

If someone asks me what I love most about a crush, I would say its the memories. The memories of love are often bitter, often painful. But the memories of a crush are always endearing. A crush comes in your life like a sweet flower, filling your life with all the fragrance and then it fades away, leaving a memory as sweet. Its like that wilted rose, which has been kept in an obscure book for so long that now it would crumple on touching or that yellowing love letter, kept carefully somewhere to always remind you that someone, at some point of time liked you more than anything else.